INTRODUCTION
I worked for the 2010 Census Local Census Office 3147 Provo last year. I have studied with interest the latest census information released on 24 February. I am writing this editorial to report some of the facts and make some recommendations based on them.
NATIONALITY
13 percent of Utah is Hispanic. KUER News reported on 25 February that when we add those Hispanics who describe themselves as white, the percentage is 20. That does not surprise me. At LCO 3147, I did a lot of double checking of documents, and the south of the border names lay pretty thick on the tables no matter what people listed as nationalistic or racial distinctions. This should give the Republicans pause in enacting any heavy handed immigration legislation. The US - Mexico boundary was drawn back in 1853 and hardly reflects current demographic reality any more. But that's another editorial.
THE CALL TO ACTION
The only difference between you and me and an “illegal alien” happens to be bureaucratic paper work. the federal government make acquiring that paperwork too complicated and too expensive. Congress should reform that particular process and quickly.
2010 POPULATION NUMBERS
Utah has 2,764,000 residents.
1,030,000 people reside in Salt Lake County.
516,564 reside in Utah County.
306,500 reside in Davis County, that narrow strip of land between the Wasatch, the Great Salt Lake, Salt Lake City, and Ogden.
232,000 reside in Weber County.
138,000 residents call Washington County their first home, not including the people who have second homes in the county. The Census did not count second-home owners in Washington County. Nearly 185,000 reside in Washington-Iron Counties.
Barely a 1000 people live in Daggett County. 1500 residents live in Piute County. Not quite 2800 people reside in Wayne County.
ANOTHER CALL TO ACTION
These numbers suggest to me the Utah legislature should address these items next year -- if not this year.
1) Utah now has 4 representatives to the United State House of Representatives. One district should be a completely rural district centering on Logan and Saint George. One district should center on Utah County. One district should center on an undivided Salt Lake City. The legislature should not divide West Jordan and West Valley City into multiple districts.
The legislature will have to divide Salt Lake County between 2 house districts – but it should not divide it between more than 2 districts. All of Salt Lake City should be in one house district. All of West Valley City should be in one house district. All of West Jordan should be in one house district.
Dividing Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County into three or four districts - - again - - will not do. If Republicans cannot defeat Jim Matheson on the issues, they should not try to defeat him by drawing Gerrymandering lines on the Utah map.
2) The population of Utah’s counties suggest to me that Utah’s internal boundaries have become completely outdated. Utah subdivides 2,764,000 Utahns among 29 counties. Not 25. Not 30. 29. The population is not srpread out evenly among the counties. The legislature should modernize the county structure by creating 10 to 15 counties with populations of 150,000 to 300,000. 10 - 15 counties of roughly comparable population would have larger tax bases to fund and do more services currently done federally or by Utah state.
THE PROBLEM OF OUTDATED INTERNAL BOUNDARIES IS NOT EXCLUSIVE TO UTAH
Utah is not alone in having internal boundaries that are now completely out of date with modern demographics.
Nevada
The Census website illustrates with population facts that Nevada’s counties lines hardly reflect current reality. Nevada has over 2,700,000 residents, which means Nevada and Utah now have roughly the same population. However, almost 2,000,000 of Nevada’s residents live in one county – Clark County – at the very southern tip of Nevada. Over 400,000 people live at the very western end of Nevada. And that leaves the remaining 300,000 citizens plus or minus spread out through the middle of rural Nevada. Clark County has nearly 2,000,000 residents and nearly Esmeralda County has just under 800 residents. Esmeralda County is somewhat smaller than Clark County, but it is not a small county.
Colorado
Colorado also has an internal structure that does not reflect current reality. Metropolitan Denver is divided up among 5 counties, ranging in populations from 400,000 to 600,000. Colorado also has two adjoining counties in San Juan mountain country that both have under 900 residents each.
Texas
Texas illustrates better than most states how Americans have let most of our internal boundaries become obsolete. For starters, Texas is the second largest state both in terms of population and in size. It also has the most counties of any state in the union as well – 254. 4,000,000 people live in Harris County. And no fewer than 5 counties have less than a thousand residents: A little more than 900 people live in Roberts County. 700 residents live in McMullen County, 416 people live in Kennedy County, whopping 286 people live in King County. A whopping 82 people live in Loving County, Texas – the least populated county anywhere in the USA.
Texas has 25,000,000 million residents – represented in Washington by just two senators. What we now call "Texas" would have better representation and would be more efficiently managed if it were multiple states of say 5,000,000 to 7,000,000 residents.
Houston-Harris County and a few counties around it should be a city-state.
Dallas - Fort Worth - Arlington - and some of the counties surrounding that metroplex should be another city state.
San Antonio and surrounding counties should be a state of 7,000,000 population.
El Paso-Cuidad Juarez, the biggest double city along the Mexican-Texas boundary, should be some sort of consolidated city state, affiliated either with Mexico or the USA. The boundary running through the two lobes of the city only encourages crime to festering and flourish.
As to what the 2010 Census reveals about Texas counties: 4,000,000 plus in a county on the high end. 82 on the other. If Texans are serious about “states rights,” Texas for a start should consolidate the remaining counties into roughly equal units of 200,000 to 300,000, so they all have a solid tax base to fund county services.
THE CALL TO ACTION
I discussed in this editorial the outdated boundaries of Utah because I live in Utah. I discussed the outdated boundaries of Nevada, Colorado, and Texas because the Census 2010 released demographic and population facts about those states.
These days, many politicians who resent federal “intrusion” and federal taxation tout respecting the states rights of the 50 internal divisions of the USA. However, leadership both state and federal have not updated the internal boundaries to reflect current reality, and thus many of the counties are either too big or too small to provide services efficiently. The legislatures should act to divide up their citizens into better counties of about 150,000, 200,000 or 300,000 populations.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
OPEN LETTER TO LOCAL LEADERS ON THE SUBJECT OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT AND WEAPONS CONTROL
We all have the right to hunt and to self-defense, but the Second Amendment never did address those issues. English common law did.
Here I reproduce an open letter I sent to various Utah leaders and federal Utah representatives on the subject of the Second Amendment and weapons control.
INTRODUCTION RATIONALE
After the Tucson killing outrage, certain Utah leaders talked about increasing gun availability and wearing concealed weapons when they met with constituents. What a pretty picture of civility that paints.
It did not seem to occur to any of them to promote the use and research-improvement of non-lethal weaponry. I suspect their fascination with guns must have something to do with the sexiness or violence of them.
BACKGROUND
Currently, The Second Amendment guarantees the right of a citizen to stop a person from shedding the citizen’s blood by giving the citizen the means to kill or disable the person. Instead of the person bearing responsibility for shedding the citizen’s blood, the citizen gets to take responsibility for killing the person. This really does not open up much by way of a choice.
The Second Amendment guarantees the exercise of power and dominion in militias.
The Amendment barely made sense in the 1790s when police forces did not exist, and many citizens lived in insolation or small villages. In those days the weapons were primitive. One had to load the powder, then the shot, and maybe the weapon would fire correctly and maybe hit someone if one was a good shot under pressure. And maybe not.
Now the military industrial complex builds bigger, more sophisticated, and deadly weapons. One person can do a lot of mayhem without much effort. Unfortunately, many merchants happily sell automatic weapons to just anyone who has the money. Thus the atrocity that occurred in the Tucson Safeway parking lot is not one of those things that just happens. There are cause and effects; there are reasons why.
The Second Amendment is not about hunting. English common law addressed that topic in 1791.
The Second Amendment is not about self defense. English common law covered that as well. English common law has no bearing on American life anymore.
As a result, gun enthusiasts hang their rights on an amendment that has nothing relevant about twenty-first century conditions.
THE CALL TO ACTION
1 Both the Utah Legislature and Congress should encourage research-improvement on non-lethal weaponry.
2 Congress and The States really should replace the outdated Second Amendment with two new amendments.
One should address the limits of American military power, including limits on soldiers’ minimum ages and on conscription.
The other should guarantee the right of citizens to self defense with non-lethal weaponry.
3 I urge you to help create and pass a new local law requiring gun owners to buy insurance for their guns. The gun owners, not the governments, then pay for cleaning up messes caused by misuse of guns.
4 I urge you to help create and pass another new local law requiring people who want to buy guns and/or concealed weapons to submit four notarized affidavits. Those documents should specifically endorse, for the public record, prospective gun owners as law-abiding, mentally, emotionally, physically competent to own and use a gun. Government should charge people with perjury if they lie. All four should have to agree.
Your reply for the record will be appreciated by
NEW RIGHT ASCENSION
RUTH HARDY FUNK IN MEMORIAM
Ruth Hardy Funk died, and the Deseret News article displays a startling lack of historical knowledge -- even for a Deseret News article. Here is the article, followed by the rest of the story:
Former LDS Young Women president Ruth Funk dies at home
Deseret News
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705366067/Former-LDS-Young-Women-president-Ruth-Funk-dies-at-home.html
Wendy Leonard Deseret News
Published: Sunday, Feb. 6, 2011 11:14 p.m. MST
SALT LAKE CITY — Avid pianist, choir leader, high school music teacher and former LDS Young Women General President Ruth Hardy Funk, died at her home on Saturday, nearly a week before her 94th birthday.
Funk, who led the young women of the LDS Church from 1972 to 1978, was an esteemed pianist who taught lessons and accompanied many throughout her years. She also led hundreds in choirs and classes at East High School from 1969 to 1972.
She was born in Chicago and raised in Salt Lake City, her father often encouraging her to learn tough pieces to play on the piano. According to a 2010 interview with The Mormon Women Project, Funk said she mastered Mendelssohn's Rondo Capriccioso at age 14, and it became her "signature piece."
She later played in her home for esteemed guests like Helen Keller, and took lessons from Leopold Godowsky.
Funk served as a student-body officer at both East High School, when she was a student there, and at the University of Utah, where she graduated with a degree in music in 1938. After marrying Marcus C. Funk in the Salt Lake Temple that same year, the couple moved to Chicago where he attended dental school at Northwestern University.
Upon returning to Salt Lake City, then-LDS Church President Harold B. Lee asked Funk to head the general board of the young women's Mutual Improvement Association. It was under her direction that the organization became an auxiliary to the priesthood for a time and changed its name to the Young Women program of the Church.
Funk was also instrumental in rewriting many lesson manuals and developing the YW's Personal Progress program. She served with Hortense Hogan Child Smith as her first counselor and Ardeth Greene Kapp, as second counselor in the presidency.
In 2009, President Thomas S. Monson honored Funk for her service at a special Church luncheon. Mary N. Cook, first counselor in the Young Women general presidency, said this about Funk: "Always an optimist and with an incredible zest for living, she has shared that zeal with countless children and youth. She is known for her love of music and youth and those two loves were often combined during her service."
Funk was also a member of the Utah State Board of Education from 1985 to 1992, where she served as chairman for a year. She also served as the chairman of the Governor's Commission on the Status of Women in Utah and as a board member for Bonneville International Corporation.
Funk was preceded in death by her husband, parents, three brothers and a grandson, and is survived by her four children, 19 grandchildren and 39 great-grandchildren.
A funeral will be held Friday, Feb. 18, at 11 a.m., at the Parley's 3rd Ward, 2625 Stringham Ave. A viewing will be held Feb. 17, from 6 to 8 p.m., at Larkin Sunset Mortuary, 2350 E. 1300 South.
© 2011 Deseret News Publishing Company
Ruth Funk was and did a great deal more than this – as explained by these paragraphs from Robert Gottlieb and Peter Wiley’s 1984 LDS history book: America’s Saints (pp. 195-197)
[In the 1960s], “most church members missed Correlation’s fundamental ideological character, which centered on the role of woman, the family , and their relation to the overall leadership structures and politics of the church.
“That ideological character was understood at the outset by Harold B. Lee.
“Harold B Lee had this sense of social breakdown, declared Ruth Funk, one of Lee’s key female assistants in the Correlation movement and later president of the YMMIA-AP during the Lee presidency. “He saw the breakdown of the nuclear family. Television wa also coming into play, and he could see how that might undermine traditional family roles and the danger that television might take us away from the gospel. His premise from the start was that Correlation strengthens the family." . . .
{concerning the priesthood taking direct correlation oversight-leadership of female auxiliaries in the 1960s} -- drs
“For so many years,” Ruth Funk declared, “the auxiliaries had maintained this attitude of possessiveness. Funk recalled that even while program activities were being restructured, auxiliary leaders such as Relief Society president Belle Spafford, literally would say about Funk, the emissary of the Correlation Committee, ‘Who’s that little young punk telling me what to do.”
. . .
{Ruth Funk, Harold B Lee’s correlation emissary during the 1960s, president of the YMMIA / YM-AP in the 1970s, got caught in the mid-1970s in a growing interest in “consciousness-raising” that primarily centered around a minority group of educated professional women in the church.
After Harold B. Lee died, her position became suddenly insecure; here’s why} – drs
“An informal gathering of about 25 women, most connected in one way or another with the Young Women’s group, began meeting, initially to discuss the work of that organization. Those meetings soon became kind of consciousness-raising sessions.
[a member who belonged to a “prominent Mormon family” described it: ]
“Less than a third of the people there would have called themselves feminists. They had open and honest talks. There was some griping about the way some General Authorities treated women, and they also talked about the overall relations of men and women in the church.”
When word of the meetings drifted back to the General Authorities, the reaction was swift. The meetings were immediately terminated, and Funk’s position became less secure, despite the fact that she had always remained a loyal defender of the church line on women. Not too long after, Funk was released from her position, primarily for other reasons. Nevertheless, it was clear that even such tentative, informal, unofficial gatherings as those threatened the church authorities, compounding their fears about they perceived to be attacks on church authority and the priesthood.”
Former LDS Young Women president Ruth Funk dies at home
Deseret News
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705366067/Former-LDS-Young-Women-president-Ruth-Funk-dies-at-home.html
Wendy Leonard Deseret News
Published: Sunday, Feb. 6, 2011 11:14 p.m. MST
SALT LAKE CITY — Avid pianist, choir leader, high school music teacher and former LDS Young Women General President Ruth Hardy Funk, died at her home on Saturday, nearly a week before her 94th birthday.
Funk, who led the young women of the LDS Church from 1972 to 1978, was an esteemed pianist who taught lessons and accompanied many throughout her years. She also led hundreds in choirs and classes at East High School from 1969 to 1972.
She was born in Chicago and raised in Salt Lake City, her father often encouraging her to learn tough pieces to play on the piano. According to a 2010 interview with The Mormon Women Project, Funk said she mastered Mendelssohn's Rondo Capriccioso at age 14, and it became her "signature piece."
She later played in her home for esteemed guests like Helen Keller, and took lessons from Leopold Godowsky.
Funk served as a student-body officer at both East High School, when she was a student there, and at the University of Utah, where she graduated with a degree in music in 1938. After marrying Marcus C. Funk in the Salt Lake Temple that same year, the couple moved to Chicago where he attended dental school at Northwestern University.
Upon returning to Salt Lake City, then-LDS Church President Harold B. Lee asked Funk to head the general board of the young women's Mutual Improvement Association. It was under her direction that the organization became an auxiliary to the priesthood for a time and changed its name to the Young Women program of the Church.
Funk was also instrumental in rewriting many lesson manuals and developing the YW's Personal Progress program. She served with Hortense Hogan Child Smith as her first counselor and Ardeth Greene Kapp, as second counselor in the presidency.
In 2009, President Thomas S. Monson honored Funk for her service at a special Church luncheon. Mary N. Cook, first counselor in the Young Women general presidency, said this about Funk: "Always an optimist and with an incredible zest for living, she has shared that zeal with countless children and youth. She is known for her love of music and youth and those two loves were often combined during her service."
Funk was also a member of the Utah State Board of Education from 1985 to 1992, where she served as chairman for a year. She also served as the chairman of the Governor's Commission on the Status of Women in Utah and as a board member for Bonneville International Corporation.
Funk was preceded in death by her husband, parents, three brothers and a grandson, and is survived by her four children, 19 grandchildren and 39 great-grandchildren.
A funeral will be held Friday, Feb. 18, at 11 a.m., at the Parley's 3rd Ward, 2625 Stringham Ave. A viewing will be held Feb. 17, from 6 to 8 p.m., at Larkin Sunset Mortuary, 2350 E. 1300 South.
© 2011 Deseret News Publishing Company
Ruth Funk was and did a great deal more than this – as explained by these paragraphs from Robert Gottlieb and Peter Wiley’s 1984 LDS history book: America’s Saints (pp. 195-197)
[In the 1960s], “most church members missed Correlation’s fundamental ideological character, which centered on the role of woman, the family , and their relation to the overall leadership structures and politics of the church.
“That ideological character was understood at the outset by Harold B. Lee.
“Harold B Lee had this sense of social breakdown, declared Ruth Funk, one of Lee’s key female assistants in the Correlation movement and later president of the YMMIA-AP during the Lee presidency. “He saw the breakdown of the nuclear family. Television wa also coming into play, and he could see how that might undermine traditional family roles and the danger that television might take us away from the gospel. His premise from the start was that Correlation strengthens the family." . . .
{concerning the priesthood taking direct correlation oversight-leadership of female auxiliaries in the 1960s} -- drs
“For so many years,” Ruth Funk declared, “the auxiliaries had maintained this attitude of possessiveness. Funk recalled that even while program activities were being restructured, auxiliary leaders such as Relief Society president Belle Spafford, literally would say about Funk, the emissary of the Correlation Committee, ‘Who’s that little young punk telling me what to do.”
. . .
{Ruth Funk, Harold B Lee’s correlation emissary during the 1960s, president of the YMMIA / YM-AP in the 1970s, got caught in the mid-1970s in a growing interest in “consciousness-raising” that primarily centered around a minority group of educated professional women in the church.
After Harold B. Lee died, her position became suddenly insecure; here’s why} – drs
“An informal gathering of about 25 women, most connected in one way or another with the Young Women’s group, began meeting, initially to discuss the work of that organization. Those meetings soon became kind of consciousness-raising sessions.
[a member who belonged to a “prominent Mormon family” described it: ]
“Less than a third of the people there would have called themselves feminists. They had open and honest talks. There was some griping about the way some General Authorities treated women, and they also talked about the overall relations of men and women in the church.”
When word of the meetings drifted back to the General Authorities, the reaction was swift. The meetings were immediately terminated, and Funk’s position became less secure, despite the fact that she had always remained a loyal defender of the church line on women. Not too long after, Funk was released from her position, primarily for other reasons. Nevertheless, it was clear that even such tentative, informal, unofficial gatherings as those threatened the church authorities, compounding their fears about they perceived to be attacks on church authority and the priesthood.”
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